Rabbit, Run ** (1970, James Caan, Anjanette Comer, Carrie Snodgress, Arthur Hill, Jack Albertson, Melodie Johnson, Henry Jones) – Classic Movie Review 8,729

John Updike’s tremendous 1960 novel translates poorly to the screen in Jack Smight’s often intriguing, but ultimately unexciting 1970 movie Rabbit, Run. James Caan stars as ‘Rabbit’ Angstrom.

American author John Updike’s tremendous 1960 novel Rabbit, Run (the first of his ‘Rabbit’ quartet) translates poorly to the screen in director Jack Smight’s often intriguing, but ultimately unexciting 1970 movie Rabbit, Run.

James Caan stars as ‘Rabbit’ Angstrom, a former basketball jock unhappily married to pregnant, alcoholic Janice Angstrom (Carrie Snodgress), when he pops out to buy his wife a packet of cigarettes, only to go off to live with good-time girl Ruth Leonard (Anjanette Comer) and not come home yet after three months.

A miscast Caan looks too world-weary for the role, and is not wholly effective as a middle-class everyman, and the film’s tone is too downbeat for popular entertainment, producing an arty, alienating experience. Producer Howard B Kreitsek’s earnest but struggling screenplay uses explicit language, with references to sexual activity, abortion and prostitution, not then previously heard in a major Hollywood movie.

Director Smight was unhappy with Warner Bros’s final cut, edited against his wishes, and campaigned unsuccessfully to take his name off the titles. Rabbit, Run is often intriguing, but ultimately unexciting.

The film co-stars Jack Albertson as Coach Marty Tothero, Arthur Hill as the Rever,nd Jack Eccles, and Henry Jones and Josephine Hutchinson as Rabbit’s parents

Also in the cast are Melodie Johnson as Lucy Eccles, Carmen Matthews as Mrs Springer, Nydia Westman as Mrs Smith, Don Keefer as Mr Springer, Marc Antony Van der Nagel as Nelson Angstrom, Virginia Vincent as Margaret, Sandra Scott as Miriam Angstrom, Margot Stevenson as Mrs Tothero, and Ken Kercheval as Barney.

It is set and shot in Reading, Pennsylvania, where Updike comes from.

Snodgress makes her big screen debut proper in Rabbit, Run after TV and TV movies and an uncredited walkon as Woman in Commune in Easy Rider (1969). Her next film is her Oscar-nominated Diary of a Mad Housewife (1970), and she is also known for The Fury (1978), Murphy’s Law (1986), Pale Rider (1985) and Wild Things (1998).

Updike’s 1981 novel Rabbit Is Rich, the third novel of Updike’s Rabbit series, won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Award for Fiction in 1982. Both Rabbit Is Rich (1982) and Rabbit at Rest (1990) were recognized with the Pulitzer Prize, making him one of only three writers to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction more than once (the others are Booth Tarkington and William Faulkner).

The four novels are Rabbit, Run, Rabbit Redux, Rabbit Is Rich and Rabbit at Rest, as well as a related 2001 novella, Rabbit Remembered.

John Updike (March 18, 1932 – January 27, 2009).

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 8,729

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